THE PATHFINDER

 PUBLICATION #43

(May/June 1990)

TRUMPETS OF FIRE

(Part III)

"PRAISE ye the LORD, Praise God in His sanctuary: praise Him in the firmament of His power. Praise Him for His mighty acts: praise Him according to His excellent greatness. Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet: praise Him with the psaltery and harp. Praise Him upon the loud cymbals: praise Him upon the high sounding cymbals. Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD" (Ps. 150).

There seems to have been a dearth that has come up from the depths of hell and has stifled the very spirit of praise and worship unto our Holy Father, the Living God. What a joy it was in the days of our youth, when the high praises of God would flood our souls, and the heavenly songs of sweet love and adoration flowed from our lips like liquid gold. We were as one sound, trumpeting great honor to the King of kings and Lord of lords. But where are they today? Where have they gone? The sounds of exaltation seem to have waned and vanished in the night. Such celestial glory and high praise to the King remains only as distant memories of the past. Although we still sing the Psalm, "I will bless the LORD at all times: His praise shall continually be in My mouth" (34:1), in truth, there are not many in this present darkness who are blessing the Lord. The words may be coming from our resounding lips, but the Spirit of praise in those words are generally wanting. Our "worship" service has devolved mostly to singing pretty songs about the Lord rather than entering into a pure relationship with Him. In reality, worship is dead in the Church.

It was several years ago that a dear friend of ours, Rebecca Eister, asked me a stirring and very challenging question I have never been able to get away from since. It was after a meeting in their home where I had delivered a word on the wonderful things the overcoming saints of God were called to. Becki commented that as good as all the rich teachings she and Ward had been hearing concerning the glorious destiny of the elect, including what I had just delivered, there was still something lacking. She said, "Everyone is telling us where we are going, but NO ONE IS TELLING US HOW TO GET THERE." She then asked the sobering question, "JUST HOW  DO  WE GET THERE?" Uh... Well, It's the Lord who gets us there... Uh... Well, Gosh! That's a good question Becki, I'll let Margit answer that one.... To say the least, that simple little question has stirred in me for years, and our Lord has not let it rest until He began to prompt some answers. At last, we are beginning to see some things; as in a glass darkly, perhaps, but we are beginning to see how we can experience deliverance and continually walk in the victory of God's Kingdom. (What we must do now is to put into practice what we are seeing.)

In our previous study we noticed the word worship, and how it speaks of a pouring out of one's soul unto God, that it is having the attitude of giving rather than receiving, i.e. "Not my will, but Thine be done." Or as Ray Prinzing so aptly brought out from the Greek, "Not my will, but Thine become...brought forth and consummated in the full reality of your purpose." We saw how great sorrow and anguish of the soul would birth a true heart rending prayer -- a prayer that is heard of our Father as it ascends to His throne. It is then that our deliverance comes -- first in the heavens and secondly in the earth. It is as Jesus said, "Whatever you bind on earth must be already bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth must be what is already loosed in heaven" (Mt. 16:19, Amplified Bible).

When we have been in worship, pouring out our souls to God, as a result of His hedge of protective Light being removed, and darkness floods our souls like the cold breath of death, this is when our prayers become serious and are heard from on high. It is then that victory is gained and we can truly praise God. Until that moment, it is as though we abide in sepulchers of unlit graves; but when we have ascended and meet our Lord in the air, to sit with Him upon His throne, we begin to shout! We sing, we dance -- we praise our Living God! First comes somber prayer, i.e. worship, and then comes the praise of victory. It is seen first in the heavens, and we become a wonder to many; but they cease to wonder when our victory is sealed and is manifested upon the earth.

The following speaks of such conquests which then prompted praises from the sweet singer of Israel and warrior of God. No doubt, he had to have known either by experience in the natural or by the Spirit, or both, in order to have proclaimed what he did. Let us see if our own hearts are not echoing in harmony with him and forming a beautiful symphony fit for the Master's ear:

"My praise shall be continually of Thee. I am a wonder unto many; but Thou art my strong refuge. Let my mouth be filled with Thy praise and with Thy honour all the day. I will hope continually, and will yet praise Thee more and more. My mouth shall shew forth Thy righteousness and salvation all the day. O God, Thou hast taught me from my youth: and hitherto have I declared Thy wondrous works. Now also when I am old and greyheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed Thy strength unto this generation, and Thy power to everyone that is to come. Thy righteousness is very high, who hast done great things: O God, who is like unto Thee! Thou, which hast shewed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth. Thou shalt increase my greatness, and comfort me on every side. I will also praise Thee with the psaltery, even Thy truth, O my God: unto Thee will I sing with the harp, O Thou Holy One of Israel. My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing unto Thee; and my soul, which thou hast redeemed. My tongue also shall talk of Thy righteousness all the day long: for they are confounded, for they are brought unto shame, that seek, my hurt" (Ps. 71:6-8,14,15,17,18-24).

These verses speak of a rising out of obscurity and darkness by the hand of God, to once again be quickened with the strength and power of His Kingdom. They speak of a future manifestation of God's glory to the whole world and into the ages to come. Simply put, they speak of us today and what lies ahead. We must never expect, however, that such wonderful and powerful things will come to pass by merely sitting back and waiting for them. We shouldn't entertain the felonious thoughts of expecting to see Jesus "up there" some cloud covered day and then to be whisked away to ever reign with Him; and neither should we assume these things are so easily obtained as naming and claiming them. And let us likewise graduate quickly from being persuaded in our carnal thinking that we have already arrived. This mentality and varying thoughts come from beneath and not from above. Truthfully speaking, dear ones, no one shall see God without Holiness. No one will aspire to kingship without being first poured out and consumed upon the fiery altar of God.

I like what Preston Eby wrote recently: "There are many across the land today who call themselves `the manifested sons of God' and make much of their exalted position in the Kingdom. Of course we must take their word for it, for in many I fail to detect either the holiness of character or the awesome power and authority that attends such a high calling. How sickening it is to hear men who have nothing boasting that they possess all things! Sons do not become sons merely by asserting that they are sons. A great evil among those who would be sons today is that they proclaim their own sonship. How often are they merely self-styled and self-appointed sons! The model Son did not proclaim His own sonship. `If I bear witness of Myself,' He said, `My witness is not true. The Father Himself, which hath sent Me, HE HATH BORNE WITNESS OF ME' (Jn. 5:31,37).

"The apostle Peter tells us in words freighted with wonder how the disciples were convinced of Christ's sonship. `For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For HE RECEIVED FROM GOD THE FATHER HONOUR AND GLORY, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice WHICH CAME FROM HEAVEN WE HEARD, when we were with Him in the holy mount' (II Pt.1:16-18). When a person does actually come to the manifestation of sonship he will never need to declare his sonship, for it is the Father who both sends and announces the sons. There is no need for a manifested son to stand up and tell the people that he is a son of God, or that he is reigning with Christ, or that he will never die, or that he is infallible, or that he is in some mystical way reconciling creation, for the Father Himself will declare him, if indeed he is a son of God; and from that blessed moment forward his word will be with such authority and his actions will speak with such power that there will be no need for him to utter a word concerning himself. Those who gather about will cry, `Truly, this is a son of God!'" -- End quote.

It is the Father, indeed, who declares our sonship. The crafty flesh of man, the power of his arm, or his self-aggrandized imaginations cannot bring this to pass nor legitimately declare it to be. If then, it is the Father who does this, it might appear that there is nothing for us to do but to sit back, hoping and waiting for Him to do it some miraculous day. Rather than assuming this or that, what we must do is first to wake up and stop being willingly ignorant. There must be the reality that as a whole we are being embraced with the bitter chill of night. We must realize the fire of Christ has become nothing more than a dying ember to the Church. And we are not to just sit and hope the cold and darkness will eventually wear off as in times past -- for this cold will not wear off. It is unto death, that is, if the warming Light of Jesus Christ does not appear.

"O.K., Brother Roach, other than awakening, what is our part in bringing forth the Light and dispelling the darkness that has engulfed the world? And how do we get there, as Becki Eister had questioned years ago?" Although, we peer through a glass darkly, as mentioned before, we can still see the pattern the saints of the early Church established. In this, we will not be presumptuous and assume that there will be a repeat of the glory of the early Church, for that was only the beginning of something much greater, but there is something which is the same.

In the infant stages of the Church, Jesus instituted His Kingdom in a multi-membered body, and certain principles were used at that time to initiate it. Although almost 2000 years have transpired, the same principles are still used today in building His house. It is the very same kingdom now that those who turned the world upside down were in, the same principles continue on to this day and beyond. It is the same as building a house: When the carpenter finishes it by building the roof, even though it is the top of the house and not the foundation, he doesn't abandon the principles of carpentry just because it is a loftier work. The work may be different, but the principles are the same.

No, we don't want to go back to the past and try to live on yesterday's manna, as sweet as it was, but we do want to see what starts the Living fires of God. We want to notice every jot and tittle of the principles that enact the Life that we might Live, that we might Live in the victorious brilliance of His great Light. In doing this, we may perhaps see again what it was like in the days of the early Church; that is, to see what it was like for the Spirit of Jesus Christ to be SEEN openly as Lord. No, this will not be a duplicate of a former manifestation of our risen Lord in the Church but will serve to magnify the glory of our Father in a much, much greater way.

One of the primary principles of igniting the Holy Fires of God is authentic PRAYER. Not a self-willed prayer or "worship" out of the carnal mind, but of prayer that is born in sorrow, yet raised up unto praise. It is prayer that is prompted by the chill of night, yet is transformed into a blaze of glory; a prayer that begins in anguish of the soul but concludes in triumphant victory and praise. Let us now note some thoughts and verses that speak of this forgotten and abused principle:

Those who are, or may find themselves, imprisoned by spiritual chains of adversity might notice what prayer and singing praises unto God will do. Many who are coming forth in Christ today, and who are standing firm in righteousness in this great hour of deliverance, will identify with Paul and Silas in prison:

"And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed. (Acts 16:25-26).

Where there had been such liberty over the past years and decades, many are being overpowered and confined by restraints -- and it is awesome. Sometimes it is hard to tell if the restrictions are from heaven or hell. All that is known in the midst of this present darkness is that the cold shackles are digging deeper into the flesh and bone. And in the midst of this present dirge to our wills, we are awakening to the hard fact that it is not all peaches and cream, and we can no longer do or go as we please. Where we once had all the liberty we could possibly hope for, we are now finding it to be as it was with Job of old when Satan was turned loose on him.

Never had we known what a great hedge God had built around us. It was not until it was removed that we understood how He had always so divinely protected us from the powers of darkness. Only when it was removed could we know by experience what we had only heard about before. We had believed that there were powers to reckon with that were opposed to God and His Kingdom, but not until now had we experienced it with such stunning fury; and this was only because the hedge of protection had been removed. Had it remained around us, then perhaps we would be as those who believe they have already arrived and are totally perfected gods. But it has not been that way. With Satan coming in like a flood, overwhelming our souls by reaching to the very depths and heights of our being, we come to know there is still room for progression and things to overcome. We are left with no shadow of turning, no choice at all; that if we do not pray, and I mean pray, we will be utterly destroyed by this prince of the power of the air.

Listen, now saints, and listen intently. When we are awakened to the fact that darkness, gross darkness, has covered the earth as the waters cover the seas, and should we find the hedge has been removed from around us, and we are shackled in a dungeon by debilitating chains -- then let us P-R-A-Y and CEASE NOT FROM PRAYING! For it is by praying in this midnight hour, as it was with Paul and Silas, that the great earthquake will come within. From the depths of our earth it will come and shake the foreboding powers of darkness (of anger, of envy, of strife, of hatred, of egotism, of self-pity, of bad habits, of gossip, of selfishness, of abuse, of all things pertaining to the flesh and the kingdom of darkness). When the foundations are shaken, it is then that we shall be released from the grip of death, for the gates of hell shall not prevail against His Church. These shakings, as deadly as they themselves may seem, will in reality serve as the keys of liberty. They will break and loosen the oppressive restraints. Along with us will be released others who are also held captive.

There are countless thousands who are held by the powers of darkness, but they do not possess the keys of hell and death, and those gates prevail strongly against them. But when the keys, the principles of prayer, praise and worship are used properly, the kingdom of heaven will be opened and the kingdom of darkness will fall apart.

If you cannot pray when the binding shackles are locked around the legs of your spiritual walk, and if you cannot praise God when the cold chains are fastened to the hands of your ministry, then I prophesy to you again: You shall never see freedom until the rolling wave of God's judgment sweeps the earth like a mighty tidal wave of death, consuming everything in its path. Yes indeed, you will then pray when the Holy flames come and sweep unmercifully over your world. You will pray and deliverance will come, yet in that day there will be a great, great loss. In the light of this, brethren, I adjure you in Christ, and by all means, do not harden your hearts against this basic principle of God -- pray when you are oppressed and down-trodden, and pray without ceasing, for your life in Him depends on it.

Before continuing on, let us touch upon a former thought. In one of our earlier articles (Pub. #29, pg. 4) I wrote on, "THE ORIGIN OF DEMONS." In it I had said that demons are created in the desperately wicked and evil heart of man, and apart from these creators they do not exist. Please forgive me for being too quick to write something that had not been clearly formulated and solidified by the Spirit nor had been tried by time and fire.

No doubt, men can create thoughts and then give some sort of life to them. After they have been formed in his mind, and with the individual dwelling on them, he eventually breathes his breath of life into them and they become part of his habits and mannerisms, good or evil. These things are sometimes confused as being demons, especially when one is really acting like the devil. Such things as this have to do with the human mind, as inspired by satan, perhaps, rather than being demonic entities themselves. Good counselors and psychologists can help with and treat human fabrications. They cannot be cast out but are destroyed by changing the thought patterns. Men in the creative image of God can create things in their minds, and label them what they will, but I seriously doubt that we have the liberty to call them demons, as I had done in the past. I recant, please forgive me.

I have spoken with many wise and mature saints of God since that earlier publication, and have asked them what they thought demons are and where they come from. To date, it appears that there is no one to whom the Lord has revealed this mystery to, but there is one thing is common. Those, including myself now, who have seen or dealt with people who are genuinely possessed by demons know that they are not mere products of their imaginations. Counselors can't touch them, psychiatrists can only drug the individual so the demons have no functional body to manifest themselves through, and the person's change of thought patterns is rendered useless as well, if he is even able to change them at all. The only thing that has any real effect on a demon is the Spirit of Jesus Christ. In spite of what man can conjure up in his own mind and give expression to, there are evidently other things to contend with that are not of flesh and blood. They come from the realm of PRINCIPALITIES, of POWERS, of RULERS OF DARKNESS, and of SPIRITUAL WICKEDNESS IN THE HEAVENLIES (Eph. 6:12).

It is clear that the church's obsession with demonology has been grossly abused, and many people have made a circus out of it, for it does afford a lot of entertainment. However, we should never allow these carnal performers, witch hunters and warmongers, to persuade us to cast the whole thing in the garbage can and bring it down to the human level of man. Even if one has been burned by such fiascoes, let them look to the Lord and see what the truth of the matter really is before assuming it is a lie and influencing the whole world with it.

Now, whether or not we know what demons are, let us ask: Do we want to have the authority and dominion over them? Wouldn't it be nice to have demons cringe with fear and trembling at our very presence? And wouldn't it be a delight to have them flee in haste like a dog from a scourge at one word of command from our austere lips? If the answers are yes, there is something that is required of us. We must pour ourselves out, dear saints, to the Holy One sitting on the throne of all authority and power -- for it is only from there that the authority comes. Otherwise, as Jesus told the disciples in Mark 9:29, we will never have power over demons. Furthermore, without prayer we will never know if we have the authority to do anything.

When we pray, and I mean pray, we may receive a single word of authority to cast out demons from a certain individual, or we might receive blanket authority over all demons from now on. And again, we may still have a few things to learn before such powers of the Kingdom are handed over to us. The word from the King will then be, "Go back to the `University of Hard Knocks' for more discipline and training." Whatever is the case, prayer is the focal point of hearing God's word and receiving His authority.

The man from Galilee, Son of the Living God, Jesus of Nazareth, if you please, left us an example of the ways of God's Kingdom while His leathery sandals trod over earth's dusty terra firma. Not only did he dwell in that high realm of God's Kingdom -- He brought it! In other words, He signed, sealed and delivered it with all authority. He came and not only established the Kingdom, but He demonstrated it, He expressed its intricate working parts, He showed us exactly how this great Kingdom operates and how we enter into it. In the simplest language, Jesus was our PATTERN, our PROTOTYPE -- He was our EXAMPLE to follow. Peter brought this out plainly, with, "Christ also suffered for us, LEAVING US AN EXAMPLE, that YE SHOULD FOLLOW HIS STEPS" (I Pt.2:21). And it was Jesus Himself, after telling the people that He had left them an example to follow, who said, "I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, A servant is not greater than his master, and no one who is sent superior to the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed and happy and to be envied are you if you practice them -- if you act accordingly and really do them" (Jn. 13:15-17, Amplified Bible).

One of the things that Jesus entered into and did very often, and sometimes spent all night in it -- was PRAYER. It was in prayer that He no doubt heard explicit details from His Father. It was after hearing that He spoke, and spoke only what He heard of His Father. It was in prayer that He saw His Father doing many marvelous things, and after seeing what the business of His Father was, He likewise did the same. (cf. Jn. 3:32, 5:19,30, 8:28,38). We will not relegate the entirety of His hearing and seeing to all night prayer vigils on bent knees in the mountains, for by experience we know there are times when we hear and see things of the Spirit as we go about our daily tasks. However, most of the fellowship, relationship, infilling, refreshing, strengthening, and if there are any other Spiritual things, they come when one is poured out in sacrificial worship -- IN PRAYER. Knowing this, and that Jesus is our example to follow, it makes us wonder why some have left prayer. Could it be that they believe they are greater than their Master? Or perhaps they have no Master as an example to follow. This is possibly the reason they have become "gods" of their own kingdoms. Whatever the case, the mark has clearly been missed.

MY HOUSE IS THE HOUSE OF PRAYER

It should be well understood that the House of God, the Temple, is not, nor will ever again be, a building made of wood or stone by the cunning craftiness of men's hands, but is made by Jesus Christ and of Living stones. It is His corporate body comprised of the saints (cf. Jn. 14:1-3,23, Acts 7:48-49, 17:24-25, I Cor. 3:16, I Cor. 6:15,19, II Cor. 6:16, Eph. 2:19-22, I Pt. 2:5, 4:17, Heb. 3:6). And it was when the zeal of God's anger had been kindled in Jesus concerning the temple (Jn. 2:17) that He quoted from Isaiah and said, "MY HOUSE IS THE HOUSE OF PRAYER," the house of sacrifice, the house of giving, the house of WORSHIP, "but you have made it a den of thieves" a den of want, a den of personal gain, a den of greed (Lk. 19:46)!

If then, we are HIS HOUSE, and He called His house THE HOUSE OF PRAYER, it behooves us, O Lively stones, to stop playing theological games of thieves and become PRAYING STONES -- STONES who make up that HOUSE OF PRAYER. If we don't, we will surely be removed as were the thieves that spring day of house cleaning. We will be left without a place in His glorious temple, while those who do pray are fitted where we may have been. Let us then be admonished, those who are of the Pattern, the ones who are of the Example, we who are of Jesus Christ -- LET US PRAY. And in praying, let us pray without ceasing, never leaving this avenue of worship, this highway of communion, this pathway of fellowship, this way of Life in our Father through our Lord and great King of glory.

To Be continued...

Elwin R. Roach

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